Tribute
by Sara Darkotter
Summary: My late tribute to Brian Jacques, the last of the master storytellers.


My late tribute to Brian Jacques. On my DA account (Link in my profile) you can see the drawing I did.

* * *

They all sensed his passing, even if they didn't understand it. Just one moment, where all of Redwall, Mossflower, all the creatures of the world he created, stopped, slowed, became somber, without knowing why.

In that moment, the world became a little dark, a little colder, lost that little sparkle and glow.

At first there was a frenzy. Layers of odd glows and colors covering their worlds and disappearing so fast.

Then it all disappeared, and slowly, Redwall, in all its glory, began to fade. Creatures left, fights happened. Creatures attacked, and defense became hard. In the end, the building abandoned.

The world became darker, crueler. Redwall Abbey succumbed to nothing but a legend. The remains of graces and chatter hanging and echoing in the rafters, beginning to rot. In Mossflower, the cries of the Guosim faded to memories burbled to itself in streams and roared by the water. They had squabbled, and fought, and fell apart. At Salamandastron, the shouts of the Long Patrol and the ringing tones of battle nothing more then tantalizing whispers on the wind, and thin callings in the tide. The last badgerlord died, no more came. Slowly, the hares left, trailing away in time till there was nothing but an empty mountain, who's spirit for what she had lost and what would never return. The otters were now but small holts, keeping tiny parts of streams and rivers, so rarely meeting. Noonvale, so little known already, disappeared, a village becoming grown over, the world never knowing what was lost.

Southsward fell. Nothing more, nothing less. Enslaved, and no help came.

The path began to be reclaimed by the forest, with so few paws to tread upon it. Oak, rowen, ash, the giants of the forest, fighting with small shrubs and grass.

Redwall fell into ruin. The walls crumbling, slowly falling to the ground, the doors rotting, as they were only wood. Metal rusting. The gardens and orchards running wild, the herbs clear scents blending with flowers and the scent of the orchard in bloom, ripening, falling.

The Laterose withered, went dormant. Part of her life came from the creatures of Redwall. The other, Martin. But his tapestry was fraying, staining, falling apart, it's colorful images slowly consigning themselves to dust. Martin's spirit was slowly fading away.

Only one bright thing remained. The sword on its brackets. Weather tried to corrode it through the shattered windows. Time tried to rust it. It remained whole. Only dulling lightly, becoming coated with dust. All that remained whole of the once legendary Redwall Abbey. Not even the bells chiming themselves in windstorms anymore, the ropes long since frayed and the bells long since fallen and cracked on the bell-tower's stone floor.

But one day, along the remains of the path-now just a thin grassy strip running along a moss-filled depression, came a mouse. He wore a black cap over his head, balanced on an ear. A white shirt and a vest, slightly traveler stained. There was the slight hint of gray to his fur. Next to him, trotting to keep up at times, was a wolf-like creature. But smaller, little more than half the mouse's height, and gentler looking. The muzzle was shorter, the eyes larger.

He walked along the grass as if he had always used this trail, never straying and sometimes commenting on changes.

He came to Redwall. One wouldn't have recognized it. It was like Loamhedge, walls mostly just scattered stones, the buildings half-collapsed, the forest reclaiming its land.

"So this where you've got to." The mouse commented. Adjusting his cap, he walked through the place where the main gates had once stood.

"Come on Teddy! Let's take a walk!"

"Ok Brian!"

He had lots of work to do.

Martin, from the tapestry, smiled. His creator had returned.

"Welcome home, Brian Jacques." The whisper echoed across a torn world.

* * *

I shall leave it here. This is an open-ending story. Anything could happen from here.

Thank you, Brian Jacques, for my childhood. A gift I never can repay.


End file.
